peppermint brownie cupcakes

thanks to the wonderful arrival of a few Christmas-themed packages, I had cocoa powder and peppermints at my disposal when pondering what to bake for my secret santa.

the result of such lovely baking supplies (thank you Hollingsworths and Talbotts) was the creation of peppermint brownie cupcakes.

we don't actually have any sort of cupcake pan, but I just set them on a cookie sheet, figuring the funny looking shapes wouldn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things.

I cut up some of the peppermints and threw them into the brownie batter and then I placed whole peppermints on top.

The most wonderful thing happened- all of the peppermints melted and sunk down, forming a peppermint bottom to the brownie cupcakes.

Chocolate and peppermint has never before tasted so good.

And you better believe I left a few behind for Hol and I, and my secret santa got a Christmas sized serving of them as well.

cinnamon chocolate chip pound cake

It began with a recipe for vanilla pound cake...


and then I couldn't help but add some cinnamon...


and then some chocolate chips....because what are Christmas baked goods without chocolate?



and somewhere along the way my vanilla pound cake batter became cinnamon chocolate chip pound cake.
and all of the chocolate chips sunk to the bottom and formed a delicious chocolate crust.


and the pound cake became Christmas gifts for our fellow GBGM staff members here in UB.

thank you Christmas for being the perfect excuse to bake all sorts of delicious things.

baby ьууз

Friday night some of my English students came over for some Christmas cookie decorating. After cookies, cards and Scrabble, they asked if they could make dinner.

I'm always up for our friends teaching us how to make Mongolian food, so Holli and I readily agreed.

Tevna, Od, Jawa and Brdne took over our kitchen to make a Mongolian soup (phonetically spelled "bansh") that is made up of ьууз (dumplings filled with meat, onions and garlic), ground beef boiled in water to make the broth, along with some potatoes, onions and salt.



They had fun laughing at my calling the dumplings we made "baby ьууз," for they are smaller versions of the normal ьууз that are a staple Mongolian food. Thankfully the baby ьууз are much easier to fold than their "grown-up" version :- )

new recipes for old favorites...

Erin and I have been having some withdrawals from some things that we love from back home.

We both share a deep love for hummus and pita bread. I did not have high hopes for being able to make either but I decided to see if I could find some do-able recipes.

After finding some recipes I realized all we needed were some chickpeas for the hummus and some yeast for the pita...both have recently come into our possession.

I'm usually up for trying anything once (with the exception of animal parts that are too disturbing to even think about eating) so, I set off to the kitchen to give it a try...

(hummus)

(pita bread)

Both turned out pretty well. The hummus needs a few more ingredients to increase the flavor but I'll figure it out. The pita bread was delicious.

I made some pizza like things with both.

(half hummus/half regular pizza with tomatoes and yellow bell peppers)

(cheese pita pizza)

We enjoyed all of our new-old favorites here in Mongolia. And will love to make them for you when we get back.

I've decided we're going to be chefs and geniuses in the kitchen when we return.

I also made jambalaya recently but forgot to take pictures, just imagine...it was good.

peace.
holli

apfelkuchen

yet another fruit-themed cake- but this used up the last of the abundance of fruit we collected during Thanksgiving week, so perhaps we can go back to non-fruit themed desserts for a bit :-)



I'm not sure there's real consensus on what an apfelkuchen recipe looks like, as every time I've looked them up I've ended up using one that is different and produces a different result.

Above is a pre-baked picture of the cake- this recipe called for one layer of dough to be placed on the bottom of the pan, then half of the apples placed in the middle, another layer of dough and then the remaining apples on top.



Post-baking, pre-glaze. I think it would have been less lopsided in a bundt cake pan like the recipe called for, but alas there is no such pan in our Mongolian kitchen. This circle pan is it unless we want a loaf of cake via a foil loaf pan.



With vanilla glaze on top- this cake was less dense than the previous apple pound cake I made and didn't have any brown sugar in it.



apfelkuchen a la Mongolia- definitely different from the one I made about five years ago, which had sliced apples with lattice crust on top and was made on a long baking sheet. And it is for sure different from the apfelkuchen I had while in Munich in high school. Too bad I don't think I'll ever be able to duplicate that one.

Anyone know if there is a definitive apfelkuchen recipe that is THE recipe?

peel banana, peel, peel banana

Banana bread.



I know of few better ways to use overripe bananas- it's easily one of my favorite breads to bake.





We took half of this loaf with us when we had dinner with the Seo's (one of the other missionary families serving here with the UMC)and it was gobbled up quickly.

And we had no trouble at all finishing the rest of it all by ourselves:-)

Baking this made me think of how good banana-blueberry walnut bread would be- I'm adding it to my "to-bake when back in the States" list.

chocolate, vanilla and oranges

We're still in the midst of trying to use up all of the fruit we received as hostess gifts at Thanksgiving.

Holli found and made this recipe for Chocolate Orange Marble cake- which allowed us to bake and to use some of the many, many oranges we had before they became inedible.

The challenge in baking chocolate recipes here is the lack of cocoa powder- but Holli used melted chocolate for this cake. I think there was some yogurt involved as well, though I'm not sure.

when life gives you lemons, make lemonade

My new adaptation to this saying is:

When Mongolia gives you no tortillas...make tortillas.

So I did.





(excuse my hair)



There they are. In all of their Mongolian glory.

I have decided that it will be my Sunday tradition to make tortillas for the week. It is a lot of fun, I highly suggest it. Let me know if you want the recipe.

In the name of tortillas,
Holli

apple harvest pound cake with caramel glaze

pre-caramel glaze






This apple pound cake was super easy to make and incredibly good. I've eaten more than my fair share over the past three days.

I found this recipe because Holli and I ended up with a ton of fruit this week and we were looking for some creative ways to use some of it. We made apple pies for Thanksgiving, so this was a good non-pie alternative that used up some of our apples.

I was most uncertain about making the glaze- we don't have caramel here (at least not that I've found yet), but all it took was butter, brown sugar and a little bit of milk.